The neos are at it again......when did humanitarium aid have to be brought in by the US military? Instead of Iran, we're going to war with Russia.
Georgia expects U.S. military help but Pentagon denies it
Pentagon denies it will control seaports, airports in crisis with Russia
MSNBC News Services
updated 12:48 p.m. CT, Wed., Aug. 13, 2008
msnbc.msn.com
TBILISI, Georgia - President Mikhail Saakashvili told his people Wednesday that the U.S. military will take control of the ex-Soviet state's seaports and airports as part of a humanitarian aid mission amid Georgia's battle with Russia, but the Pentagon quickly shot down the claim.
Bush announced the U.S. humanitarian effort prior to Saakashvili's comments, which came in a televised address to his nation. Bush said the mission had already begun and involved U.S. aircraft as well as naval forces.
Saakashvili then told Georgians: "You have heard the statement by the U.S. president that the United States is starting a military-humanitarian operation in Georgia. It means that Georgian ports and airports will be taken under the control of the U.S. defense ministry in order to conduct humanitarian and other missions. This is a very important statement for easing tension."
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell quickly countered: "We are not looking to, nor do we need to, take control of any air or seaports to conduct this mission."
"The role of the U.S. military is strictly to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the victims of this conflict," Morrell said.
Still, the presence of U.S. military forces delivering aid to Georgia could ratchet up tensions with Russia, and at the same time deter Russia from targeting the ports.
Janusz Bugajski, director of the New Democracies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Bush's actions should "persuade Russia from any further aggression."
"I wouldn't stake a lot of money on it, but I wouldn't think Russia would want to provoke something with the United States," Bugajski said.
Meanwhile, Russian tanks rolled into the strategic Georgian city of Gori, and then pressed deeper into Georgia territory, smashing an EU-brokered truce designed to end six-day conflict that has uprooted 100,000 people and scarred the Georgian landscape.
A U.S. C-17 military cargo plane loaded with supplies landed in Georgia on Wednesday, and Bush said that Russia must ensure that “all lines of communication and transport, including seaports, roads and airports,” remain open to let deliveries and civilians through.
Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said a second supply-laden C-17 would arrive Thursday and that an assessment team was to arrive soon in Georgia to determine other needs. The Pentagon also is preparing to send the hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, if needed, though it would take weeks to get to the region.
The administration also will review what military help is needed for Georgia’s now-shattered armed forces, Whitman said.
In Georgia, government officials said Gori was looted and bombed by the Russians. An AP reporter later saw dozens of tanks and military vehicles leaving Gori, roaring south.
Soldiers waved at journalists and one soldier shouted, perhaps jokingly, to a photographer: "Come with us, beauty, we're going to Tbilisi!"
Georgia's deputy interior minister later said Russian troops were not advancing towards Tbilisi.
"I'd like to calm everybody down. The Russian military is not advancing towards the capital," Ekaterine Zguladze told a news conference. Zguladze did not specify what the Russian troops were doing.
Separatists mock 'American training'
To the west, Abkahzian separatist forces backed by Russian military might pushed out Georgian troops and even moved into Georgian territory itself, defiantly planting a flag and laughing that retreating Georgians had received "American training in running away."
The developments came less than 12 hours after Georgia's president said he accepted a cease-fire plan brokered by France. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that Russia was halting military action because Georgia had paid enough for its attack last Thursday on South Ossetia.
The EU peace plan's concept of having both sides retreat to their original positions was running into the stark reality of Russian dominance on the battlefield.
About 50 Russian tanks entered Gori on Wednesday morning, according to a top Georgian official, Alexander Lomaia. The city of 50,000 sits on Georgia's only significant east-west road about 15 miles south of South Ossetia, a separatist province where much of the fighting has taken place.
Russia's deputy chief of General Staff Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn insisted Wednesday that no tanks were in Gori. He said Russians went into the city to try to implement the truce with local Georgian officials but could not find any.
However, AP reporters and television crews saw several dozen Russian military trucks and armored vehicles speeding out of Gori and heading south Wednesday after sighting them around the city. One reporter was told to retreat to the south because Russian shelling would soon begin.
Sporadic clashes
Nogovitsyn also said sporadic clashes continued in South Ossetia where Georgian snipers fired on Russian troops who returned fire. "We must respond to provocations," he said.
Russia has handed out passports to most in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and stationed peacekeepers in the both regions since the early 1990s. Georgia wants the Russian peacekeepers out, but Medvedev insisted Tuesday they would stay.
In the west, Georgian troops acknowledged Wednesday they had completely pulled out of a small section of Abkhazia which they had controlled — a development that leaves the entire area in the hands of the Russian-backed separatists.
"This is Abkhazian land," one separatist told an AP reporter over the Inguri River, saying they were laying claim to historical Abkhazian territory and that Georgian troops left without challenging them.
The fighters had moved across a thin slice of land dotted with Georgian villages.
"The border has been along this river for 1,000 years," separatist official Ruslan Kishmaria told AP on Wednesday. He said Georgia would have to accept the new border.
Georgia insisted its troops had been driven out by Russian forces. At first, Russia said that separatists had done the job, not Russian forces. Nogovitsyn said Wednesday that Russian peacekeepers had disarmed Georgian troops in Kodori — the same peacekeepers that Georgia wants withdrawn.
The effect was clear. Abkhazia was out of Georgian hands and it would take more than an EU peace plan to get it back in.
Tens of thousands uprooted
One of two separatists areas trying to leave Georgia for Russia, Abkhazia lies close to the heart of many Russians. It's Black Sea coast was a favorite vacation spot for the Soviet elite, and the province is just down the coast from Sochi, the Russian resort that will host the 2014 Olympics.
Lomaia said Russian troops also still held the western town of Zugdidi near Abkhazia, controlling the region's main highway. An AP reporter saw a convoy of 13 Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers in Zugdidi's outskirts on Wednesday.
The first U.N. relief flight arrived in Georgia on Tuesday to help the tens of thousands uprooted by six days of fighting. Thousands of Georgian refugees have streamed into Tbilisi, the capital, or the western Black Sea coast while thousands more South Ossetian refugees headed north to Russia. Those left behind in devastated regions of Georgia cowered in rat-infested cellars or wandered nearly deserted cities.
At a huge rally Tuesday night, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said Russia's aim all along was not to gain control of the two disputed provinces but to "destroy" the smaller nation, a former Soviet state and current U.S. ally who wants to join NATO.
"They just don't want freedom, and that's why they want to stamp on Georgia and destroy it," he declared to thousands at a jam-packed square in Tbilisi.
He was joined by the leaders of five former Soviet bloc states — Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine — who also spoke out against Russian domination.
"Our neighbor thinks it can fight us. We are telling it no," said Polish President Lech Kaczynski.
In Brussels, Belgium, France sought support from its EU partners to deploy European peacekeeping monitors to the area. But French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the move would only take place with the consent of both Russia and Georgia.
Russia accused Georgia of killing more than 2,000 people, mostly civilians, in South Ossetia. The claim couldn't be independently confirmed, but witnesses who fled the area over the weekend said hundreds had died.
Georgia said Wednesday that 175 Georgians had died in five days of air and ground attacks that left homes in smoldering ruins. He said many died Tuesday in a Russian bombing raid of Gori just hours before Medvedev declared fighting halted.
'Explosion came so abruptly'
An AP reporter also saw heavy damage from a raid Tuesday in a Georgian village near Gori. Two men and a woman in Ruisi were killed and another five were wounded.
"I always hide in the basement," said one villager, the 70-year old Vakhtang Chkhekvadze as he pulled off a window frame blasted by an explosion. "But this time the explosion came so abruptly, I don't remember what happened afterward."
The Russia-Georgia dispute also reached the international courts, with the Georgian security council saying it had sued Russia for alleged ethnic cleansing. For his part, Medvedev reiterated accusations that Georgia had committed "genocide" in trying to reclaim South Ossetia.
At the Beijing Olympics, Georgian women rallied Wednesday to beat their Russian counterparts in beach volleyball, the first head-to-head clash of the two nations.
"Russia and Georgia are actually friends. People are friends," said the Georgian beach volleyball team leader, Levan Akhtulediani. "But you know, it's not, in the 21st century, to bomb a neighbor country, it's not a good idea."
"I say once again, its better to compete on the field rather than outside the field," he added.
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